In my research on how relationships mean to our experience, one form of relationship that I have always been skeptical about are friendships. Growing up, I had a lot of friends in school. Not so many outside of school, but one who was a neighbor who I considered to be my best friend until I moved away.
After moving at age 11 or so, I met a lot of different people and had a lot of friends all throughout middle school and high school, none of which I have any connection to today. Now, my only friend is my wife, and she is truly the best friend that I will likely ever have. I feel no need to have any friends or even that many acquaintances, but I do feel somewhat isolated.
These feelings of isolation occur because I actually want to contribute something to society, or at least to a community, but I find no suitable means of doing so. I’m not keen on meeting the people that live in my town and I abhor online connections. Yet, I have this contrary driving force that pushes me to write with a want to be of use to people in some way.
Not knowing what to do about my lack of connections, I’ve turned to philosophy, specifically the books The Meaning of Friendship by Mark Vernon, and Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.
The reason I did not keep any of my prior friends is because the basis for the friendship was not something deep or profound, rather it was instrumental in some way. Even the best friend that I had in high school has long since fallen away. There would be times in more recent years where he would call and tell me how much he values our friendship, and I would tell him the same, but I felt differently. I recognized that there was nothing keeping our friendship together; no communication, no more shared interests, no more time spent together. I couldn’t imagine why he felt our friendship to be valuable anymore. Yes, we had lots of great and fun memories, and perhaps that's what sustains him, but without an ongoing connection, the friendship to me, has ended.
It seems that many of the friendships people have are instrumental in some way, which also means that no one is truly a friend for the sake of another’s essence. Vernon explains that Aristotle considered 3 different types of friendships. There are those who are bound together by work, politics, and other means that typically involve a shared purpose. There are friends who share similar interests and pleasures, but typically go no further than those shared interests. Both of these friendships are instrumental, and once the shared pleasure, goal, or purpose is removed, the friendship dissolves. Then, there is what Aristotle considered to be soul friendships, which are extremely rare and involve loving a person for who they are, rather than what they can do for you.
This is an oversimplification of the information given in the introduction, but it starts to give you an understanding of why some friendships last and why others don’t.
The friendships that are instrumental in nature are particularly bothersome to me. These are the friends who will take advantage of you and talk behind your back. They represent superficialities which are intolerable to me, and are the reason that I’d rather keep a tight circle. However, I do miss out on the benefit that having instrumental friendships can bring.
Vernon suggests that superficialities are part and parcel in maintaining friendships, even really close ones. They’re the little white lies we tell one another, such as when someone makes food that you don’t like but you tell them it’s good anyway. Vernon states that there might be more appropriate times to be truthful about something. I think it to be obvious that the truer friendships have less of these white lies because too many of them would create a level of disingenuousness that would prevent deep bonding. However, when maintaining friendships that are more instrumental in nature, say like with a boss and employee, it’s beneficial not to disrupt the friendship because that could mean not getting a raise or perhaps even keeping the job.
Though you might not consider a boss-employee relationship to be a friendship, there are elements of it that represent a kind of friendship, and this is true for many different kinds of relationships. Vernon mentions how difficult creating a single definition for friendship is and instead sets out to ask the important questions like, “What is friendship?” and “What perils and ambiguities does friendship incur?” Vernon states that what's important and valuable is in the asking, not the searching for the answer. Like many questions in philosophy, there may be no definite answer, but in a time where relationships are falling apart and an emphasis is placed on instrumental friendships, it’s important to ask why people are sacrificing deep relationships for superficial ones.
The questions that come to mind for me are:
Why are relationships falling apart?
Why do people in romantic relationships place so much importance on friendships outside of the relationship?
How do people really view friendships?
Why do I feel the need to belong to a community?
How can I build a community?
Why am I averse to joining either a local or online community?
Although some of these questions are personal to me, it’s very possible that you may be asking the same questions. If you’re trying to start a business, or are simply trying to find a community to belong to, you’ll be asking the same questions.